Page 148 of Swordheart
“That is… quite a punishment,” said the scholar. Halla had forgotten that the man was even there.
Sarkis sighed, not looking at him. “For me, perhaps, it was just. But the Dervish and Angharad deserved a clean death, not to be bound into magic steel and forced to fight until the end of time. They followed my orders. Angharad told me it was a poor idea, but I overruled her.”
“I see,” said Halla. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He was a liar and a criminal and apparently a traitor.
She could all too easily feel sorry for Angharad and the Dervish. They had trusted him, too, and look where it had gotten them.
Look where it got any of us.
“So there you have it,” said Sarkis. “The whole sordid tale.”
“I suppose you didn’t lie, did you?” she asked. “You just let me believe whatever I wanted.”
Sarkis shook his head. “That’s a coward’s way out,” he said. “I knew full well what you believed.”
“I believed inyou,” she said softly. “I thought you were a hero.”
“I know.”
“I trusted you. I let you…”
She cut herself off. The night they had spent had been like nothing she’d ever felt, and now it was tainted.Everythingwas tainted.
“Halla…” He reached for her hand.
She yanked it away, shaking her head. She didn’t want to look at him. She was going to cry soon and be damned if she was going to cry in front of him.
“You could have just told me,” she said miserably. “You didn’t have to lie. I wouldn’t have cared. Why didn’t youtellme?”
She made the mistake of looking at him, and saw that his face looked as anguished as she felt. “Because for hundreds of years, I have died for wielders who thought that I was nothing but crowbait. An inhuman weapon or at most, a traitor who deserved a traitor’s death, over and over again. And then you came along and you… you were…” He lifted his hands and let them drop. “You were you,” he said finally.
“I was a fool.”
“No.You were kind and you were in a very bad situation and you wanted to believe the best of the man who saved you.”
“I should have known.” Her voice was as dull as a dying woman’s. “I should have known better. My fault for thinking a hero would have anything to do with someone like me.”
“Halla…”
“Go away,” she said tiredly. “Leave me alone.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I am bound to you until you die or sell me or give me away.”
“So that part was true?”
He nodded.
“Then you’re free,” she said. “I give you to yourself. You don’t need to serve me any longer.” She flung the sword down on the table.
“Halla, I—”
The pommel struck the table and the blade slammed into the scabbard. Blue light splashed around Sarkis and tore him away, even as he reached out a hand toward her.
“It’s real,” breathed Nolan. “He’s really one ofthem.He’s a servant of the sword!”
“Later,” she said. “Later.”
“But—”
